Songo is a genre of popular
Cuban music, created by the group
Los Van Van in the early 1970s. Songo incorporated rhythmic elements from folkloric
rumba into popular dance music, and was a significant departure from the
son montuno/
mambo-based structure which had dominated popular music in Cuba since the 1940s. Blas Egües was the first drummer in Los Van Van, but it was the band's second drummer, José Luis Quintana "
Changuito," who developed songo into the world-wide phenomenon it is today.